The End is Over
by NightmareWeaver
Summary: What if circumstances were different, and Jack had been one of the kids in the warehouse that Johns was shooting at?


Note : I suppose you could call this a story inspired from a special feature on the Pitch Black DVD, because I'm such a nerd. I do beleive my soundtrack from writing this chapter included songs from Powerman5000, including When World's Collide and Automatic. Thank whatever diety you wish for rock music.

Disclaimer : I don't own Riddick, Johns, Jack, or any other characters from the movie that may or may not appear. I'm pretty sure by now everyone can guess which character I would like to own if the possibility ever arose, but alas, dimensional transporters are a thing of the far flung future.

**The End is Over**

Chapter One

She had hidden in a warehouse, escaping the grasp of port security within crate canyons that sat waiting for the next line of cargo loaders. In a crevasse of polysteel mesh she crouched, lungs gulping in as much oxygen as they could hold. Her legs burned, muscles overworked from being forced to run faster than the prescribed norm. Her shirt was sticking to her back from a combination of sweat and blood and oil. One of the many scabs decorating the skin on her back had been scraped off along with extra skin, and her pants were torn in places where her joints would stretch the damage. She kept her head bowed, arms draped over her knees, tangly rusted brown hair filling in the gaps between her chin and shoulders.

There were shouts outside the aluminum walls, but they were either distant or something was wrong with her eardrums. Creaks and bumps could have been interpreted as footsteps, but there were no searchlight beams penetrating the shadows, no whistles, no guns, no bloodhounds to track her scent. Those uniforms were gone for now, leaving her to such devices as she desired.

With an unsteady breath, she dropped the ragged backpack she'd been carrying onto the concrete floor, wincing at the noise it made. The echoes of every movement could give away her hiding place, but she couldn't keep crouching with her legs aching so much. She sat, forcing down a whimper as her legs stretched out in front of her. Pain, that never-ending constant she had hoped to leave behind, had followed her, albeit in a different form.

Her stomach gurgled.

She pulled open her bag and retrieved a protein bar stolen from the port of the last planet she'd stopped at. Peeling the wrapper back, she bit in taking off a stale chunk into her mouth. Chewing became a deliberating motion, her jaw complaining from still healing bruises earned in earlier incidents. She ate it all, and then licked the wrapper clean, this scrap of a snack barely sating the grumbling emptiness in her gut.

Not a crumb left, she let the wrapper fall to the floor only for it to be caught in a cross breeze created by the sudden grinding opening of distant doors. She lifted her head and caught movement in the shadows to her left. Instinctively she recoiled, curling backwards as her legs screamed in protest after so little time to rest.

There was a darker form in the darkness, breathing almost silently, lungs moving air in and out. She could only hear the movement because of the sound conducting effect of the metal crates and now to her ears it sounded so loud, like a dragon preparing to spew forth a wave of burning air to incinerate the surroundings. A creature it could have been, nesting within the innermost areas of the building, but another shifting movement dispelled the notion from her perceptions.

It was a man, crouched as she had been before, arms resting on his knees, head bowed and eyes closed. He had managed to fit himself into the surroundings as if he'd always been there, adaptation at its best.

She kept staring for a moment, her heart beating in her chest at such a rhythm she felt sure it would break free from the confines of her ribcage. He had to know she was there; she'd made far too much noise in her entrance and in the moments since.

Now there were footsteps, moving slowly through the aisles as if with a purpose. Only one set of boots, searching with the flare of a flashlight dancing against the far walls. There was a pause in the steps, filled with the sound of several clicks distorted by the echo effect of the crates. Even that broken noise was identifiable her ears - how many times had she'd heard her brothers preparing for the day? Shotgun shells being loaded into place; a chill went up her spine.

As cautiously as possible, she picked up her bag rocking onto the balls of her feet, shin splints sending pain like needles up the corridors of her nervous system. She slung the strap across her back, tightening it so it wouldn't bounce like the last time. Now she was prepared to make her flight, to run towards the doors and maybe slip past the port guards that would surely be waiting. Worry kept her in place a little longer, the dangers of what-if questions taking up root.

What if she didn't run fast enough?

What if she tripped?

What if she went the wrong way?

What if they all had guns?

What if, what if, what if?

And there was a rumble, so low on the frequency chart that she almost missed it. She turned her head once again to look at the man crouched just across the aisle. Time having given her eyes more time to adjust to the light, or lack thereof, for she could see a little more than his outline now. He seemed bigger than when she'd first spotted him, as if the darkness itself had claimed defeat and backed away. As she watched his head moved imperceptibly, the smallest of negative motions, a warning.

She froze, almost forgetting to breathe. The footsteps were louder, closer than before, and everything that she had learned over the past few months was screaming at her to run. Hell, everything she had learned in her life was insisting that vacating the area was the best possible plan. She shouldn't wait to be caught, shouldn't just wait for the end, so she made to move, shuffling backwards ever so slightly. The soles of her sneakers scraped on the floor as she moved, her eyes still focused on the man hiding in between the crates next door.

Then he looked at her, eyelids snapping open so fast that she almost screamed. She caught herself just in time, nearly choking on her own spit but managing to keep herself from making too much noise. A kind of numbness had now frozen her in place, and so she crouched as the boots came closer, staring.

The irises were a silvery blue, but in this low light the lenses made even the pupils appear to be of a metallic luster. The nearest comparison her memory could apply was the glow of an animal's eyes in the brightness of car headlights before being rundown, but this came nowhere near close. This man was not going to be run down nor in anyway was he going to die in such a horrible fashion as road kill. There was something very definite in the way he stayed unmoving, relaxed yet ready to spring up, as if he had already decided the outcome of the day.

A voice forced its way down the aisle, breaking whatever force had held her gaze to his, allowing for her eyes to blink furiously.

"I know you're in here Riddick."

Even with the distortion from the crates and the building's inherent structure, she could pick up the tonal qualities. It was low, but demanding with just a hint of annoyance broken only by the fact it also sounded like the speaker was slightly out of breath. The thought approached her mind that she might have heard that same voice somewhere else before, but reminiscing about old times wasn't so high on her priority list right then.

"Just depends how you want to come out I guess," the speaker continued, flashlight closing in on what few shadows remained. "Bleeding, or not."

Gravity made her rock on her heels, hands prepared to push off in the opposite direction when the time came. She glanced back across the aisle only to find that her luminent eyed company was gone.

"Because personally, after the shit you pulled, I wouldn't mind shooting you."

Someone laughed, deep and unamused. The kind of laugh that's been cultivated with such selectivity as to make the present company uncomfortable.

"Willing to lose half a million creds over that, Johns?"

The flashlight, having just reached the edge of her hiding spot, spun to confront the source of this dark new voice.

"Just said I'd shoot you," Johns replied, clicking up the setting on the beam in an effort to clear away the shadows that still clung to the immediate area. "Didn't say I'd kill you."

He started back up the aisle a few feet, retreating maybe, but in her mind it was good enough. She eyed the corridor of crates one block down and, with just a small glance down the passage, she jolted into action. Maybe her feet hit the ground a little too hard, but the minute she dodged out of her nook, Johns turned back around. She only noticed in her peripheral, too intent on making it to the next box to worry about the other players in the game.

The ground knocked the air from her lungs and the world had gone silent but for the roar in her ears. There was a pain in her arm now, but a cursory glance told her it wasn't even a ricochet, just a fragment of metal from the shell colliding with the crate above her shoulder. She pushed herself up and kept moving, ducking down and around, zigzagging through the maze. She didn't know if she was being chased, didn't know where she was going; running was all she could do. The ringing in her head didn't stop even when she hit the wall, so she didn't hear the shouts and the threats and the other discharged shells that broke through the air. She followed the wall deeper into the warehouse and soon discovered a rusted triangle of light to escape through. A broken edge tore at her short, the only hindrance caused by this particular exit, but she soon found herself in the blinding landscape outside.

No one jumped to grab her as she limped away, all the port guards having congregated around the entrances in nervous huddles. Her movements took her back into the port, towards the now unsecured docks. She made her way to a lonely cutter sitting on the farthest edge of the scorched tarmac. It was old, and its hull was weathered, but it had the look of a ship easy to get into. She crawled up through the landing struts into the inner hull, earning new scrapes and stains. Adrenaline fading, it took the rest of her strength to force her way through the wires and insulation, to drag herself into the engine maintenance compartment.

Exhausted, she collapsed next to a large tool box that had been bolted to the wall. It was dark and uncomfortable, but weariness overruled and she fell asleep to the dull ache her legs continued to provide.


End file.
